Hello again,
Today I’ve decided to tell the story of how I came to have PND.
For those out there who don’t know what PND is it stands for Post (or now Peri) Natal Depression. It’s a form of depression association with pregnancy and new motherhood. My doctor described it as an imbalance of hormones, my osteo said it was caused by a combination of sacral (tailbone) misalignment and stress to the spine during active labour. Other mums say its from extreme sleep deprivation. I’m sure there are other explanations for the condition and as I’m no expert I can only tell you what I experienced.
I can tell you exactly when my depression started. It was the 23rd of January 2007 at about 3:30pm. Precisely the same moment my then doctor (I have since changed and you will soon see why) declared me pregnant. This was followed by me swearing. The doctor then asked if it wasn’t my husbands (it better be!!!) and that we hadn’t planned the pregnancy. Ah well NO!!! She then raced into why I had to have an ultrasound immediately as I could be anywhere up to 5 months along and we needed to decide if the pregnancy was going to proceed. Also because I’d had bleeding, this wasn’t a good sign. WHAT?!
Still reeling from the revelation of being pregnant, the doctor then asks if I’ve been taking pregnancy vitamin supplements. No I hadn’t. Apparently I should have been on them for at least a month prior. She asked if I had had any alcohol or soft cheeses or deli products. I had and was then told how that could have caused issues with the baby too.
So there I was sitting alone in the doctors office having gone because I was tired all the time and not feeling quite right thinking I probably had glandular fever only to find out I was pregnant and having a guilt trip dumped on me.
In a state of shock, I sat in my car in the car park trying to call hubby. He wouldn’t answer the phone, kept going to voicemail. Left a message along the lines of why doesn’t he answer the phone when I really need him.
Start to drive home in tears.
Get home to wait for my parents to arrive from the airport. Hubby rings. Wail down the phone that I was pregnant. He then had to find someone to drive him home. Was told to keep parents from leaving before he got home.
About an hour after all this my parents arrive to find me sitting on the couch howling. Tell them I was pregnant. Mum starts crying, Dad sits down. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur but the folks stay the night instead of heading straight home.
The next morning, I somehow manage to get in to have my first of many ultrasounds. Hubby couldn’t attend as he had walked out of work without telling anyone what was going on. My mum came with me and held my hand. On the screen was a 10 week old foetus. 10 weeks old. Um, how did I miss that? My mum was saying things like, how lucky I am that I didn’t have to worry for the first trimester and how lucky I was not to have any morning sickness, but I wasn’t listening. I had a printout of my scan and I was freaking out.
I also need to tell you about my family history. When a pregnancy is discovered, the whole family holds their breaths. Our track record isn’t great. So not only did I have the guilt trip from the doc, but I also had a family waiting to see if the pregnancy and I survived.
To cut a long story short. I spent most of my pregnancy crying and feeling really bad. But I didn’t tell anyone just how bad I was feeling.
After Little Miss’s difficult birth, I was being watched very carefully by the ward nurses and when I started to see the health centre nurses, I was being monitored closely. I didn’t really realise this until later. It wasn’t until I was going to mums group every week and crying that the health nurses sat me down and said it was time I started counselling. I didn’t think they had noticed just how bad I was. I was wrong.
After 18 months of counselling and eventually agreeing to meds, I’m much better. Still have bad days but not as bad or as long lasting as before.
So the question of whether I would have had pnd if the pregnancy was planned? Dunno. Probably but it might have started later.
Thanks for reading this. Next time I’ll pop some of the recommended ways to start feeling better that I’ve used.
Em.